There's going to be displacements no matter what we do. Likewise for furloughs to some degree and duration. What lowering ALV will do is reduce how far the negatives go. While you don't want a "double whammy" of an hours cut along with a displacement, lower ALV's will reduce how far you slide down the ladder. For some that will not prevent a displacement but for others it will. For those who still get displaced, it will at least reduce the seniority slide.

Full ALV til the last day is a very poor and hyper fatalistic strategy that only makes sense in two scenarios; imminent liquidation or rapid V shaped recovery. For everything in the middle, which is far more likely, lower ALV/GAR (especially in conjunction with early outs and even lower SIL's) won't eliminate, but will significantly mitigate, whatever downside there will be. The traditional mass furlough to the bone model will also slow our recovery on the upside of this, meaning whatever furloughs and displacements we see will last longer than they would have with a reduced ALV.

 

Did we agree to lower ALV’s by 20% to avoid furloughs previously? Is this being done by other airlines? Why is this being promoted by the company before any attempt to use SILs and early retirements? I believe it is an attempt to divide us. It also an attempt to play to the emotions of other employee groups.

 

Nope...didn't have PBS or ALVs last time. Just good ol' line of time and power move-ups. 😊

 

Simple. The economic impact of 9-11 was an absolute joke compared to this. Unlike the much slower and more predictable slide back then, this is sudden, severe, and unknown in duration. A faster climb out of the sinkhole is more likely than the typical recessionary market cycle, even one force multiplied by the short lived fear factor for our industry back then. If we furlough to the bone instead, we will lose out long term much worse. We need to be ready to quickly recapture lost flying and prevent massive marketshare hemorrhaging.

I'm all for SIL's and think the company should have done them at the agreed upon 55 hours for May and maybe even June. If we don't do a lower ALV (unless we liquidate or rapidly recover to industry powerhouse status) then we'll probably have to go much lower on SIL's and if there aren't enough takers they may have to assign them. I liked the general tone of the MEC's recent letter. The part that smacked of ignorant bravado though was the abject nonsense about the ALV relief request only granting a few days of liquidity. Um, yeah, in an almost zero revenue environment.

IMO it is very unlikely that lasts all year and beyond. Its also very unlikely we make a roaring back recovery this year, or even next year. So for all the likely middle ground scenarios, we will need to significantly reduce our "billable hours" and there are many ways and combinations of ways we can do that. SIL's, early outs and lower ALV's are the best stratedgy IMO, although we will likely see some degree of furloughs. We should give nothing in the way of relief without not only snapbacks (ALV reductions can be temporary and extendable and will always snap back with a recovery) but also immediate upsides like company provided medical for all furloughed pilots, vacation and training pay improvements, longer long call, SC credit, DH improvements and on and on. I'm also in favor of limiting their dangerous burnback scams in the future by getting a punitive cut of any future burnbacks as an immediately payable bonus in partial exchange for our temporary relief now. If they don't want to reciprocate for our help, then so be it. Full ALV til the last day then.

 

1. As you know, they will take whatever they can get from us then declare bankruptcy anyway if they need to. Lower ALV’s will not prevent that. Snapbacks go away when they declare bankruptcy with zero chance of recovery .... except maybe 15 years later.
2. They will never agree to limit buybacks or restrict themselves in any way financially with a pilot contract.

SILs and early retirement are nearly equal in savings to 20% less ALV. Why do you keep pushing for lower ALV? It is a management proposition being pushed.

 

I’m 57. Give me 50 hours a month with healthcare and I would retire tomorrow. Only caveat would be it has to be bankruptcy proof. No....I don’t know how you do that.

 

This right here!!! There are other avenues than lowering the ALV to reach their goals. Why is management so intractable about pursuing anything other than lower ALV? And before you say it, we shouldn’t care what the optics are to other employee groups. That is not our concern.

Denny

 

How's about $2334. a month and $403. for med?

 

This is all about optics and always has been. No pilot should care about the optics to other employee groups. They’ve placated the other groups anyway by offering 65-hour SILs if they “self-identify” as wanting one.

AA has set the industry standard for achieving cost savings right now. Delta management is failing at this miserably and will continue to do so as long as it obsesses over anti-union optics and reduced ALVs.

 

One “advantage” the management at AA has over ours, is that if you’ve followed discussions amongst their own pilots and others, is that AA management has had a fixation on reducing overhead for some time, trending towards a race to the bottom to basically turn themselves into an LCC in terms of costs and services.

I’m certainly amongst those that thinks our own management has behaved emotionally versus logically when it comes to honest dealing with the pilot group. Regrettable, but what we can see of their actions don’t make a ton of sense in the current environment.